Do you write this full healthcare for all, as your standard?
There ARE models that work. The Swiss and German models offer a LOT of what I think most Yanks would want, while allowing for a secondary private stream that doesn’t irreparably stifle innovation.
However, it would require a thumping great majority in the US to achieve this, and would also require a careful outreach from the driver to not have an immediate backlash.
Obama had the former, but absolutely failed with the latter.
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There’s also a problem that socialized countries are encountering currently, and it is politically insoluble.
The aging population, and corresponding increase of dementia (and similar diseases) eat the health budget, but also can’t be reformed without huge damage to the party that attempts it, so none do.
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Boomers and increasing cases of Dementia…
DEFINITELY an ever-growing problem in the States, @Legalsteel…
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Unquestionably. It and pension funding are two massive questions the West will have to answer, and bloody quick too.
Throw in a little national debt interest working against that borrowed money, and you have a trifecta for eventually having to reset all financial markets due to unpaid consumption.
I guess mondo militaries are not going anywhere soon.
Scary stuff.
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I try not to think about it, much like the political class.
Question:
Don’t you guys think that Pensions were/are a terrible retirement model especially for the Private sector? ( Governments (with exception of the Feds) are even struggling with what to do about Pensions, as they stand to eat up more and more of State and Local Budgets).
I truly don’t know the answer.
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A guaranteed stream of cashflows with no underlying savings/investments/assets set aside to fund them is a bad idea no matter who’s doing the promising.
In all fairness they made a lot more sense when people died less than five years after they retire.
That’s why you saw private business jump ship away from defined benefit plans when life expectancy spiked. The government… well they’re a little slower to react. Haha.
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When avg Joe blows a gasket about Green Deal pricetag of 90TT, but doesn’t realize unfunded pension obligation is 80ish TT and who knows on projected medical costs - even under current Medicare/Medicaid/VA arrangement.
Haven’t even added in 1 million new residents a year with zero resources, or existing debt of 22TT.
Plus EU has the same issues and larger population.
Cmon man it’s the Trump thread. He said defaulting on the debt ain’t no big deal which surprised me. Then he said ain’t no defaulting on the debt because we print that money man.
I wiped my brow and thought he’s right. We print the money. Nothing to worry about.
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There can be a total reset.
What other solution is there? See my post abovd on unfunded.
We will be keeping the military, as l said.
Or somebody might try to take back their stuff.
The worst part was the defined benefit model, rather than defined contribution. But we have a fundamental issue that the retirement age is too low, but we will have low job progression without retirement.
Show me how to square that circle.
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You beat me to it.
I, personally, expect to never receive a state pension. It’s all gonna go Illinois way before too long.
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I write basic healthcare for all (with stipulations) as a realistic standard for the real world. Even then I probably would never get my realistic standard as I think end of life care needs to be evaluated based on success rates and % of avg years remaining added to the total.
My real standard would rely on a somewhat healthy America. Or one motivated to take preemptive steps at securing their health to avoid more expensive problems.
Edit: Or repeal the law that forces ERs to accept people without insurance. but lol.
I’m not actually well versed on Swiss (is it similar to Germany?), but iirc Germany’s solution is very close to a universal coverage isn’t it?
I think we’re still a decade from Republicans getting on board with that. It’ll take another financial crash for sure imo.
This. The reason you can’t fix healthcare is it’s too easy to stop a guy from getting reelected when he told you he’s taking your last 6 months with grandma.
The only way to do this is to make sure everyone has skin in the game with their healthcare costs. Overweight, smoking people should pay more because they use more health care. Women should pay more, because they consume more healthcare.
I’ll won’t hold my breath.
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Agreed
Disagreed. This isn’t the only way to have people have skin in the game. This is the free market approach that obviously wouldn’t work in a social scenario.
Yes.
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What we need is something that keeps people from going to the ER with non-emergencies.
But it is good that we accept people without insurance in emergencies. We shouldn’t have horrific auto crashes where they decide not to save someone’s life because they can’t determine whether or not they have insurance. That would be cruel and inhumane for a country as developed as we are.